If
you are vacationing on the outer Cape, which you should do, and you go to
Provincetown to walkabout on a Friday evening, which you should do, and you
walk up and down Commercial Street, which you could not help but do, you will
see all the gay couples and singles and small traveling packs that you would
expect, and then some. And if you walk east from the docks and the main
square and peer between the buildings on your left, and the sky is clear and
the moon is full, you can cut behind the buildings and the parking lots to the
beach where you can see the most beautiful evening scenes of the boats and the
bay and the moonlight on the water. We did that, and took some happy
pictures there. And then, when we had seen enough of the moonlight on the
water, as if you can ever see enough, we walked back through the parking lot where
a young man had run out the back door of one of the places to stand alone on
the asphalt, his head bent forward, his fists pushed up tight into his eyes,
crying as he stood there alone. We sought only the carnival, but were
reminded nonetheless. Hearts are breaking, too, under every moon.
